Its opening line is one of the most famous in the history of political speeches. The Gettysburg Address, delivered 150 years ago today by US president Abraham Lincoln, begins: ‘Four score and seven years ago…’
However, can you recall any of the rest of the speech? Perhaps it doesn’t matter. It’s fairly likely you know nothing of the main speech given on November 19, 1863 at the dedication of the Soldiers’ National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania during the American Civil War.
That’s right, Lincoln’s address to a crowd of about 15,000 wasn’t supposed to be the big event that day. That honour went to politician Edward Everett, who delivered a 13,607-word talk that lasted two hours. No one quotes that speech. Just after Everett spoke to the crowd, Lincoln took to the stage and delivered his own – it lasted two minutes and went down in history.
Everett was blown away by the short speech, writing to Lincoln the next day: ‘I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.’
That idea was that the US, gripped in civil war, needed to look back (the ‘four score and seven years’ refers to the Declaration of Independence in 1776) and use the lessons of the past to move forward into ‘a new birth of freedom’. This rebirth, Lincoln said, would be based on ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people’ and that Americans owed it to their fallen countrymen to follow that path – the speech came more than four months after Union troops defeated their Confederate counterparts at the Battle of Gettysburg.
In his speech, Lincoln said: ‘The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.’ In one sense, then, he got part of the speech wrong – it is remembered 150 years later, even if not everyone knows how it goes after the opening line.
The beauty of Lincoln’s speech lay in its conciseness, said Dr John R Hale, director of liberal studies at the University of Louisville in Kentucky. ‘Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is probably the greatest speech ever written,’ he said. ‘It took him several days to perfect the very short, final version. But in just a few sentences, he summed up American history and democratic ideals as well as giving a new motive for keeping up the fight, so that those who fell at Gettysburg “will not have died in vain”.’
There is also an argument that Lincoln’s speech was years ahead of its time, which is why it still resonates today, when audiences quickly tire or overlong oratories. Today’s speeches are more likely to resemble Lincoln’s. The rise of social media has changed the way they are written and digested, not just because of the increase in potential distractions but also because of the way in which speeches are broadcast.
‘Modern politicians are responding to the demands on modern media and short-attention span modern mass publics, both of which push politicians in the direction of offering memorable ten-second clips suitable for rebroadcast in news cycle after news cycle,’ said Dr Stephen Farnsworth, a professor of political science at the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.
‘At best, modern presidents are sometimes remembered for key sound bites, like Ronald Reagan’s “tear down this wall” commentary in West Berlin during the Cold War or George W Bush’s remarks atop a destroyed fire truck just after 9/11.’ Bush said at the time: ‘I hear you. The rest of the world hears you. And the people who knocked down these buildings down will hear from all of us soon.’
When time constraints are a huge factor, shorter really is sweeter. World leaders are expected to make hundreds – if not thousands – of speeches a year, whether it’s at the opening of a new hospital or a response to a terrorist attack. Quantity doesn’t mean quality.
‘Presidents and prime ministers are required to say so many words on so many occasions that inevitably the quality of what they do say has deteriorated,’ said Professor Russell Riley, an expert on speeches and the US presidency at the University of Virginia.
‘One Reagan-era speechwriter has referred to much of this as “[White House] Rose Garden rubbish” – the kinds of remarks the president is called on to do on a daily basis to deal with in commemoration of this or that, or this policy or that.’
For this reason, the role of the speechwriter has never been more important, although this depends on the leader doing the speaking. George HW Bush relied heavily on his speechwriters, while Bill Clinton preferred to be involved in the speechwriting process.
‘In general, direct involvement has declined over the years,’ said Dr Theodore Sheckels, a professor of communication studies at Virginia’s Randolph-Macon College. ‘However, this varies a great deal. There are usually four tiers involved: the president or prime minister, an aide, a chief speechwriter (or communication director) and other speechwriters.
‘It’s the second tier’s job to make sure that the speech is what the president wants to say. Some presidents have gotten involved and ruined a speech that would have been good from a speech perspective and a policy perspective.’
But the best speeches aren’t always perfectly written. ‘Technically poor speeches are not necessarily ineffective,’ said Richard Toye, professor of modern history at the University of Exeter.
‘Sir Edward Grey’s speech in the Commons at the outbreak of World War I was quite inarticulate, but he impressed people by his sincerity. George W Bush often misspoke in a way that made him look fairly stupid to sophisticated audiences, but for many people this was a sign of authenticity.’
Time can be kind to speeches. Everett was one of the few who immediately appreciated the greatness of Lincoln’s speech. ‘Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address was not famous at the time of its delivery,’ said Martin J. Medhurst, distinguished professor of rhetoric and communication at Baylor University in Texas. ‘In fact, it was criticised in some quarters, mostly because it was so short. But it’s a great speech and the language choices are just perfect. It is a sacralisation of the war and its meaning, and it’s one of the greatest speeches of all time.’